My attachment to English, in all fairness, is due to a prolonged absence from La Belle Province; I spent my formative years in Vancouver. After a whirlwind romance with an out-of-towner, my mother moved us to the West Coast, where, for the next eight years, life was the picture of Suburban Bliss: Days spent at the mall, the word ‘like’ taking over my vocabulary like a pesky parasite and my hair suddenly no longer a deep shade of brown, but instead quite blond. Shockingly, the marriage between an emotive, Artiste-at-heart French Canadian woman, and a Golf-obsessed, somewhat meek man of a certain age, was not made in heaven. And so, eight years later, mother and daughter - now living alone in a less desirable suburb - decided to pack it up and, on one rainy Christmas eve, where they found themselves desperately longing for ragout de boulettes, tourtière and -30 degree weather as only Montréal could deliver.

But back to the question at hand: Why is a Québecoise perpetually feeling like she’s on the outside looking in; not quite invited to play in the French school-yard with all the cool, Plateau-bound kids, but rather more comfortable in the Monkland Village, sitting at a coffee shop, reading the latest Margaret Atwood novel? It’s all a question of education.

Upon arriving in Vancouver, my mother made the brilliant, brave choice to send her daughter to an all-English public school, and not to the popular French immersion schools that were so easily accessible. My eight year-old brain absorbed the new language like a sponge; within three months, understanding every word the teacher said, and within five months, speaking like a valley girl; the transformation, the assimilation, was complete.

As a teenager, your only concern, only desire is to fit in, and so keeping a sense of my Québécois heritage was not a priority; hanging out at the mall, scouring for just the right pair of acid-washed jeans, took, like, way too much of my time to be concerned with such questions of cultural identity.

The battle meant providing ridiculous amounts of history detailing the specific percentages spent studying in English for each school year in B.C.; apparently the Quebec government had devised some sort of fail-proof, scientific formula that would, once all calculations were in, inform them if, indeed, the amount of schooling spent in English was greater than the point of no return.

And so, here I am again, back in Québec, this time after having spent two years in Los Angeles (it’s not, in fact a city of Angels - I assure you), still with that gnawing feeling of not belonging. Not completely belonging in those Anglo enclaves and certainly not at home in the company of its cooler, free-spirited counterparts in the Plateau. So what’s a girl to do? It’s taken a while, but the realization that my unique experience and its subsequent repercussions, at times culturally confusing and alienating, is valid and irrefutable, and any time spent worrying about whether or not I can ever be viewed as a true Québécoise again, is futile. I’ve now shed any expectations either culture has tried to hang on me.

Alors, je suis Fanny La Croix, tout simplement. J’essaie, tranquillement de regarder un plus grand nombre de films québécois, de lire la langue de Molière, et d’essayer plus de recettes à la Di Stasio plutôt qu’à la Jaimie Oliver. J’aime le Québec, en fait, je l’adore! C’est pour ça que j’y suis de retour - committed to live in this beautiful province, without having to feel it’s ‘mon pays,’ and yet still feel at home on St. Denis, enjoying a glass of Sangria, slipping comfortably between French and English just because I can.